This invention is directed towards monitoring and control of electrical systems, and more particularly towards energy monitoring and control.
The Electric Utility Industry is deregulating through the divestiture of generation assets from the vertically integrated local utility companies. Historically, the local electric utility company owned and operated all components of generating and delivering electricity to its end use consumers through a regulated franchise agreement. These franchise agreements were regulated by individual state public utility commissions which oversee the operations, costs, and revenues of the local utility in order to ensure fair pricing among various ratepayers and the reliable delivery of electric service to all ratepayers.
Deregulation of the industry has dramatically changed the role that the local utility plays in providing energy to its end use consumers. In addition, new entrants to the marketplace have the ability to provide specific energy services that were not available or allowed in a regulated electric utility environment.
Deregulation has required that the Local Electric Utility Company or Local Distribution Company (xe2x80x9cLDCxe2x80x9d) divest and sell its generation assets (xe2x80x9cPower Plantsxe2x80x9d) in a competitive auction. New entrants are allowed to competitively bid and purchase power plants in service territories where they traditionally had no market presence. With new entrants owning and operating power plants, they possess the ability to sell power at the wholesale and retail market level. Both options create opportunities for the power plant owners to provide electricity to end-users. The primary market barrier for new power plant owners to enter into and provide retail energy to end users is the inability to acquire detailed load profile information on a real-time basis.
The metering architecture that exists in the field today is geared toward providing only enough information to accurately bill consumers on a monthly basis for energy consumed. Because the industry was regulated, and service provided by a monopoly, energy use was billed based on xe2x80x9caveragexe2x80x9d rates and prices. In the deregulated environment, the price of competitive electricity, generated by individual power plant owners, changes on an hourly basis based upon changes in supply and demand.
While technology continues to advance, the focus of various metering technologies and manufacturers continue to be more so on the efficiency by which data is collected (for billing purposes) and not necessarily for end-use energy management purposes.
For individual end users, the price of energy (generation component) in a regulated environment remained relatively consistent over the course of a day or month. This was due to the fact that the local utility had 100% of the market through a franchise agreement with the state regulatory body. Individual user""s energy profiles were grouped together into an aggregated portfolio of all users resulting in the averaging of electricity generation prices. Capacity charges were used to penalize those who used energy during costly peak periods of the day. These capacity or demand charges remain with the regulated utility and continue to be charged as part of the LDC""s transmission and distribution cost recoveries. For the competitive generation supplier, usage patterns by end users are no longer being charged on an xe2x80x9caveragexe2x80x9d rate per kilo-watt hour. Pricing is derived on an hourly basis depending upon supply and demand requirements.
The lack of a real-time xe2x80x9ccentralizedxe2x80x9d energy communications, monitoring, and data collection system provides a significant barrier to the maturation of the competitive electricity generation industry. Competitive generation suppliers lack the ability to receive real-time load profile information of its customer xe2x80x9cportfolioxe2x80x9d or the aggregated real-time hourly use patterns.
The present invention relates to the field of energy use/control and cost reductions through the management of individual or multi-customers energy use profiles on a portfolio basis via a communication network with two-way monitoring and control capability and sophisticated software and analytical tools. Embodiments of the invention include an ability to collect data from and manage individual user facilities, homes, buildings, or equipment from a centralized location and on a portfolio/aggregated basis. Substantial cost savings are achieved by managing individual users on a portfolio/aggregated basis by taking advantage of certain opportunities resulting from deregulation.
An illustrative embodiment of the present invention includes a centralized energy monitoring, equipment control, and energy procurement system that utilizes a wireless fixed communication network as the basis to deliver real-time energy use information from end users to a centralized data center for monitoring and control. One feature of this system is to manage and optimize energy costs of end users on a portfolio basis. In order to optimize both energy conservation and energy purchasing benefits in a deregulated environment, energy use profiles of individuals will need to be managed on a portfolio basis with other end users with complimentary and offsetting load profile characteristics. The system of the illustrative embodiment uses a wireless narrow-band frequency to packetize and transmit data from an end user""s point source to the centralized data center. Current monitoring modules measure energy use for main facility loads or submetered equipment or end use loads. This information is transmitted via a wireless fixed communication network to the centralized data center. Systems and software within the centralized data center gathers real-time energy use data from end users within a fixed range and analyzes end load profiles on a portfolio basis. The software intelligence initiates and sends packetized commands to field devices located at the end users facility via the wireless fixed communication network. These commands are received by device controllers, such as Equipment Interface Modules (xe2x80x9cEI Modulesxe2x80x9d) and Demand-Side Management (xe2x80x9cDSMxe2x80x9d) RF Modules. The EI Modules and DSM RF Modules receive the commands and start/stop equipment to control end use energy load profiles. By performing this automated activity, the portfolio managed by the centralized data center is optimized to reduce energy consumption during costly peak times and reduces the price of competitive energy from competitive generation suppliers that possess fixed capacity levels. The result and benefits of this system is to optimize the total cost of energy in a deregulated market.
Embodiments of the present invention manage and optimize energy costs of end users on a portfolio basis. In order to optimize both energy conservation and energy purchasing benefits in a deregulated environment, energy use profiles of individual end-users are managed on a portfolio basis with other end users having complimentary and offsetting load profile characteristics. At least one embodiment of the invention uses a 2-way wireless system in combination with Internet communications to packetize and transmit data from an end user""s point source to and from a Centralized Data Center where sophisticated analysis can be performed utilizing complimentary data to initiate more effective control.
Proprietary software within the Centralized Data Center gathers real-time energy use data from end users and analyzes end load profiles on a portfolio basis. The software according to an illustrative embodiment of the invention initiates and sends packetized commands to field devices located at the end users facility via the wireless fixed communication network. These commands are received by Equipment Interface Modules (xe2x80x9cEI Modulesxe2x80x9d). The EI Modules receive the commands and executes control of end-use devices. By performing this automated activity, the portfolio managed by the Centralized Data Center is optimized to reduce energy consumption during strategically advantageous times.
Embodiments of the invention having an ability to monitor energy and cost data on a real-time basis and control end user energy use remotely allow for the Centralized Data Center to optimize individual and/or aggregate load profile curves of the portfolio to reduce energy costs beyond each individual""s abilities. Software that will reside at the Centralized Data Center can provide a real-time data link to competitive power suppliers in order to purchase competitive electricity on a real-time basis.
An illustrative embodiment of the inventions sends load profile data from the aggregate portfolios and receives real-time pricing signals from competitive suppliers of energy. Based on these price signals, the Software initiates commands (automatically and/or manually) to reduce energy use within selected and prioritized schedules. In the illustrative embodiment of the invention, these signals are sent via a two-way wireless fixed communication network to EI Modules to control and reduce energy use to optimize the portfolio""s load profiles on a real-time basis.
The various embodiments of the present invention reduce the total cost of energy in a deregulated market for end use customers, energy suppliers, transmission and distribution providers and generation providers.
Information collected according to the various embodiments of the present invention allows the competitive energy suppliers to provide real-time pricing signals and capacity thresholds that affect pricing levels on an hourly basis. This information received by the competitive suppliers is analyzed by the Centralized Data Center and commands are initiated that can prioritize and control equipment to start/stop at the end users premises. The ability to centralize and manage this service on a portfolio level provides the service provider and energy supplier with the ability to have flexibility within its customer base to affect energy usage without affecting core business activities or comfort levels.
The present invention features a process that uniquely utilizes a combination of proprietary hardware and software to control energy use and/or generation (by directly controlling end-use devices that consume or generate energy), to achieve energy savings and/or to execute more effective energy management strategies to realize cost savings.
The present invention further features a method of managing energy use and generation by monitoring its use in real-time, predicting its future behavior through the use of sophisticated analytical tools and other data sources and controlling end devices that consume energy or generate it.
One embodiment of the invention includes a system for monitoring and controlling power usage among a plurality of facilities, with a device controller coupled to at least one power consuming device at each facility, the device controller to control the at least one power consuming device. It also includes a power measurement device within each facility, to measure power consumption by power consuming devices within the facility; a communications network, in communication with the device controllers and the power measurement devices; and a central location, in communication with the communications network, to remotely monitor power usage at each facility as measured by the power measurement device. The central location communicates with the device controllers over the communications network in order to individually control the at least one power consuming device at each facility.